Dixon City: How fares the area made notorious by Rob Ford — aka the ‘Red Apple’ — a year after massive police raids

Awil Yusuf took a slow drag from a Du Maurier Light, a habit he acquired 14 years ago while prepping for college math exams, and instigated a conversation.

“It’s not as bad as you think,” said the self-described activist, outside a cluster of northwest Toronto towers that form part of what is known as Little Mogadishu or Dixon City.

Children streamed in from school and whizzed by on bikes with training wheels. Women wearing taut hijabs sailed by, engaged in lively banter.

Last year, 320 Dixon Road and its neighbouring apartment buildings became notorious for something else — the existence of the Mayor Rob Ford crack video purportedly peddled by young men living among them. Friday marked one year to the day that tactical police squads raided the buildings and busted an alleged violent gang called the Dixon City Bloods, suspected of smuggling guns across the U.S. border in Windsor. Project Traveller, as the operation was dubbed, resulted in 43 arrests, the seizure of 40 guns and $3-million worth of cocaine, hashish, heroin, marijuana and other narcotics, police said.

It’s what comes after that matters, many say. And a year is enough time to see a change.

There is cautious optimism on the cracked asphalt and worn-out corridors of Dixon. Crime is down, police say, and a group of neighbourhood officers have gone to considerable lengths to earn the trust of locals. There’s a little library at 320 Dixon, a computer room is open again and new property management has instilled confidence among many residents.

But as is the case on any neighbourhood street, there isn’t consensus. And apprehension lingers.

One woman who called the police raids “excellent” and complained of still being able to smell hashish from neighbouring units, cringed at the sight of a reporter taking notes because it’s “not safe” to be seen “talking to police or white people.”

Another woman, who also did not want to give her name, applauded the “great” effort by police, but said the raids and media attention “exaggerated” the danger and unfairly pinned it on the Somali community. She and others have taken to calling the mayor the “Red Apple” so as not to mention his name.

Others, like Abdul, who has coached many local youngsters in soccer, says law enforcement should have busted down doors sooner.

“Because if they do that long time ago, we never lose some of those kids,” he said.

Police have described Project Traveller as a year-long investigation into the Dixon City Bloods, a gang they say was primarily responsible for trying to control the area of Dixon Road, between Kipling and Islington avenues. Reams of court documents uncensored earlier this year detail the alleged violence that gripped the area, dating back to 2009, when a 16-year-old boy was discovered in the lobby of 340 Dixon, unconscious and suffering from a stab wound to the abdomen that killed him.

Aden Ayoob apparently got in the way of a fight between two other men, a confidential informant told police.

The person described young Aden’s murder as part of a larger dispute between older Bloods and younger ones. (Neither the source’s information nor any of the other claims made in the police affidavits have been tested in court). In the years that followed, the body count rose.

Shots rang out one night in July 2010, next to a daycare at 340 Dixon Road, sending people scattering. Police believe one of the intended targets in that spree was Anthony Smith, a young man and alleged Dixon Blood who would be murdered in 2013 outside a nightclub and who appeared in a famous photo alongside Mayor Ford.

In 2011, Abdikadir Khan was found dead, in a pool of blood, in the stairwell of 320 Dixon. Police alleged he was present when Aden Ayoob was murdered two years earlier.

These episodes notwithstanding, long-time residents say Dixon has been a good place to raise a family, with immigrants from not just Somalia but Pakistan, India and beyond who live there by choice, not necessity.

Mohamed Ali, 39, spends most of his time in Alberta, working heavy machinery in the oil sands. He lived in Dixon as a child when he first arrived from Somalia and says it is good for his wife and three children because there is a network of people on whom they can rely.

“This is my home, I won’t leave,” says Ruby Evans, 64, who raised her children over 35 years in the complex.

Adds another Somali mother, who declined to give her name: “We don’t have gangs, we never have gangs. We have a lot of graduates who are looking for jobs. But they don’t mention that.”

The Somali Liaison Unit of the Toronto Police Service appears to be making inroads, though. Formed before the raids, the group of one sergeant and six officers, who speak Punjabi and Urdu and are learning Somali, is on a mission to build trust in the community.

They walk the beat in Dixon, a group of buildings on Islington and across from Woodbine Racetrack. They host job fairs. They hand out their personal cell phone numbers. Const. Ammar Khan painted the walls of the 320 Dixon library. He has heard many a long tale from an elderly man who was once a police officer in Pakistan. Constables Raman Sandhu and Sylwia Swider organized and participated in a girls basketball game this week. On Wednesday, they carried Lays ketchup chips and vegetable samosas into a dank basement “party room” where 30 women attended a children safety workshop.

“This is like our home away from home now because you know the people. You keep up with their lives, you’re helping them when they need help,” said Const. Sandhu. “It also gives [residents] a perspective of policing in a different way. That we’re not always hard on, hard on, hard on. We are there to help.”

She says the residents are “moving on” from the raids.

Even so, the African Canadian Legal Clinic remains critical of the operation, and how residents were treated by tactical officers. The group believes the raids were actually sparked by the investigation into Rob Ford. “If they had genuinely wanted to do something in the community, why this eerie coincidence and timing? It doesn’t sit well with our organization,” said Roger Love, who describes himself as the group’s advice lawyer.

Ahmed Hussen, president of the Canadian Somali Congress, said that while the raids left some with a “bitter taste,” the Somali Liaison Unit’s efforts are paying off. “In this case, that one unit has done wonders,” he said.

But it’s not just about policing. On Wednesday, a swarm of children and their parents descended on a shed in front of 330 Dixon for a weekly bike clinic. Steve, who does not want his surname used, has been running it for nine years, mostly out of a neighbouring Methodist church, which flooded last summer, moving his operation to the heart of Dixon. He was peppered with “Steve, can I have a bike?” and “Thank you, Steve” and “Steve, I need a lock!”, to which he responded, warmly, “I don’t have locks! I’m not Santa Claus!”

It took a few tries to convince the children that he really did have to leave.

“Steve, your house is this one,” said a boy who looked to be about seven. “I see a lot of optimism here,” said Steve. “I see a lot of people getting involved.”

Many point to new property management company — the same that has been running neighbouring 370, 380 and 390 Dixon — as one tangible sign of changing fortunes. Mark Cianfarani, whose father Vince managed the 320 complex back in the mid 1990s, took over the property last year and has beefed up security, cleaned up derelict vehicles, begun landscaping, and started the process of replacing keys with card access.

He launched a newsletter to dispel rumours about how condo fees are spent. Since the new security regime came into effect in January, Mr. Cianfarani said there hasn’t been any issue with crime, vandalism or false fire alarms. Units that had been selling for as little as $40,000 when Mr. Cianfarani took over can now fetch around $70,000, he said. Years ago, they sold for as much as $130,000.

“We’re on the upswing here,” said Mr. Cianfarani, with Vista Property Inc. “It’s not an easy process… You have to basically show people that there is going to be change and there are possibilities.”

For those caught up in the raids, the wheels of justice grind on. Many of the accused are still awaiting preliminary hearings. Shedrack Agbakwa represents Liban Hussein, an 18-year-old college student police say was part of the Dixon City Bloods. Mr. Agbakwa doubts the Crown will be able to prove that a criminal organization by that name exists, let alone that his client was a knowing participant. And he questions the effectiveness of such large-scale operations.

Abdul, the soccer coach who knows some of the accused, is bitter.

He recalls seeing Rob Ford hanging out with 15-year-olds in a back alley when he was a councillor. He’d ask what he was doing and get told, “bro, it’s none of your business.”

As for the police raids, “I feel we are nobody. We are safe but only when [they] come for something they’re looking for,” he said.

“If you talk to the kids over here and ask if they’re Canadian, you know what they say? I’m fake Canadian.”

His friend, Awil Yusuf, explained it as a “dichotomy of us versus them.”

It’s an experience he reckons most waves of immigrants can relate to. Dixon is no different.